Q: Is There Anything I Can Do About Bad ESN?
Hi everyone,
Knowingly, I recently purchased an iPhone with bad ESN off of eBay. The seller and I talked about it, and she told me I should be able to just use it as an iPod (which I was planning on doing). When I got the phone, though, it would not let me avtivate it because there wasn't a SIM card in it. I use T-Mobile, so I decided to get a T-Mobile SIM card for it to plan ahead in case I ever do want to activate it. But when I finally got the SIM card, it said "SIM card is invalid". I talked to the T-Mobile support team, and they said I had to put it on service for 7 days in order to activate it with T-Mobile. So I added the phone to my plan, but it never showed up with having service and NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
I think this is because of the bad ESN or that the phone is wired for Sprint. How can I change this? Is there anything I can do about it, anything AT ALL? I'm desperate here. All I need to do is set up the iPhone, becuase I want to just use it as an iPod... I've been through the communities in Apple and T-Mobile, plus searched the Internet. Should I flash the phone? I'm going to a T-Mobile store today to see if I can get it fixed. Please don't say it's hopeless, I've also contacted the seller, hoping she can help me, becuase I feel sort of cheated as she told me I should be able to use it as an iPod with no problem whatsoever. And now I can't even get into the phone
Thank you for any help you can give.
iPhone 5c, Bad ESN with Sprint
Posted on Jun 14, 2014 3:15 PM
The T-Mobile guy didn't know what he or she was talking about. Rewriting the ESN or IMEI is illegal, as in go to jail illegal if caught. And how would you know what to rewrite it to? There are lots of services on the Internet that claim they can do this. Most are outright scams; they will take your money and you will still have a useless phone afterwards. And it can't be done remotely; they must actually have possession of the phone.
What you CAN do is get a used and disabled Sprint SIM; you should then be able to activate the phone as an iPod. Apple does not enforce Sprint's blacklist; it's only if you try to activate it with a live Sprint SIM that you won't be able to do it.
Posted on Jun 15, 2014 12:26 PM